Senior Ag students enjoyed a day of action at Pascoe’s mixed cropping and livestock enterprise to experience the practices and management of sheep and crops. The day kicked off with experiencing some of the farm infrastructure and machinery before enjoying the opportunity over morning tea, to hear from farmer Dusty about his journey to living his dream of the farming life, as well as some of his adventures along the way; such as Jackerooing and a lap around Australia working and travelling.
A sheep feed lot was next up and students got to see and hear about the management of this aspect of the farm, learning about sheep nutrition / reproductive management / lambing and the innovation behind the sustainable design of the feedlot. Just a paddock or 2 away students then learnt about both pest & disease prevention as well as management of flocks; grazing on crops for short periods of time before moving them onto pastures and allowing the crop to grow on to maturity and be harvested.
Last session was a tour around parts of the cropping enterprise firstly to see and hear about the amazing soil beneath their feet and then about the importance of crop selection, inputs and weed monitoring & management.
The afternoon wound up with a later lunch and chat over a campfire in a fenced off treed area that Dusty had planted more than a decade ago as part of his plan to increase Biodiversity on farm. A special thank you to the Pascoe family for hosting our Ag students for the day and a huge shout out to Dusty for sharing with us his incredible Ag knowledge and skills which reflect a life-long love of Agriculture which has no doubt inspired our budding agriculturalists to continue to pursue their dreams.
